Thursday, October 25, 2012

Screw It – I’m Voting For Him Because He’s Irish

This is why human beings suck. I’m up early during
the week – the first one up in our house, usually – and so I’m cranky and
sleep-deprived and most mornings I’ve had just about enough of you people
and your election-related shenanigans. Is it too much to ask to log on to the
Twitter machine without confronting this level of jack-assery on a daily basis?

Yes, that’s Brietbart.com’s editor-at-large Ben Shapiro,
getting all racist-y on Twitter after this morning’s announcement
that Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of
State under George W. Bush, and National Security Advisor to Ronald Reagan, has
endorsed Pres. Obama for reelection.

[N]ot only am I not
comfortable with what Governor Romney is proposing for his economic plan, I
have concerns about his views on foreign policy. The Governor, who was speaking
on Monday night at the debate, was saying things that were quite different from
what he said earlier. So I’m not quite sure which Governor Romney we would be getting
with respect to foreign policy.

…

I mean, it’s a moving
target. One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan, but
then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On
almost every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Governor Romney agreed
with the President with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of
foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign. And my concern, which
I’ve expressed previously in a public way, is that sometimes I don’t sense that
he has thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have, and he
gets advice from his campaign staff that he then has to adjust to modify as he
goes along.

…

I think there’s some
very, very strong neo-conservative views that are presented by the Governor
that I have some trouble with. There are other issues as well, not just the
economy and foreign policy. I’m more comfortable with President Obama and his
administration when it comes to issues like what are we going to do about climate,
what are we going to do about immigration? What are we going to do about
education? … I do not want to see the new Obamacare plan thrown off the table.
It has issues, you have to fix some things in that plan. But what I see when I
look at that plan is 30 million of our fellow citizens will now be covered by
insurance. And I think that’s good. We’re one of the few nations in the world,
with our size, population and wealth, that does not have universal health care.

All of which seems well-reasoned to me, but Mr.
Shapiro’s first impression was along the lines of: Look at this guy, being
all black and all, liking the other black guy! The blacks always stick up for
other blacks, man!

As you might imagine, Ben Shapiro was not the only
white conservative howling like a stuck pig today. If you’ve got the stomach for
it, wade through the comments section of this
article on Glenn Beck’s organ, The Blaze. (Heh, heh, yes, I said
“organ” … .) And before I could turn off Twitter this morning, I saw at least a
half-dozen other right wingers making the same basic accusation as Shapiro and The
Blaze’s commenters: When African
Americans endorse African Americans, why … that’s racist!

So, what that means is, from the country’s first
presidential election in 1788 to and including the 2004 presidential election,
every African American who voted in a presidential election had the choice of
two white dudes, or the occasional, you know, Socialist Party candidate who
happened to be black. Meaning – the real choice was always between two white
dudes.

So when you say an African American, prominent or
otherwise, only supports Pres. Obama because he’s black, YOU ARE AN IDIOT.
African Americans have been voting for white candidates for as long as
African Americans have been able to vote in this country – and that’s a subject for another blog post altogether.So you really don’t get to accuse African American voters of
being “racist” when a candidate like Barack Obama finally comes along and, lo
and behold, his politics happen to align with the politics of many African
Americans.